Posts Tagged ‘Odd Things’

A former FBI agent has told the BBC that he is being prevented from telling the truth about the events of 9/11 and what has happened since.

Ali Soufan alleges that crucial intelligence was not passed on from the CIA before the attacks in 2001.

He has written a book detailing some of his claims and has been speaking to the BBC’s Security Correspondent Gordon Corera in his first on camera interview on the subject.

In response to the allegations in this report the CIA issued a statement to the BBC that said: “Any suggestion that the CIA purposely refused to share critical lead information on the 9/11 plots with the FBI is baseless.”

“The suggestion that the Central Intelligence Agency has requested redactions on this publication because it does not like the content is ridiculous.”

The CIA decline to comment on the record about the accusations regarding waterboarding and interrogation.

IF FOR SOME REASON OUR GOVERNMENT WAS INVOLVED IN 9/11 IN ANYWAY AND DID NOT PREVENT IT FROM HAPPENING MY OPINION OF HUMAN NATURE WILL TRULY BE CRUSHED. I HOPE FOR THE SAKE OF ALL MANKIND WE HAD NO PART OF THIS, BECAUSE NO ONE WILL BE SAFE IF THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS COMMIT SUCH ATROCITIES AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE, THE PEOPLE THEY WERE ELECTED TO PROTECT.

People I have met that live in St. Louis tend to just call this the West County Bubble, or some even call it the Ballchesterwood Dome. However this guy thinks the weather avoids St. Louis because of something that the arch in down town St. Louis does. Check out his comments below.

The St. Louis Arch, a 636 ft. monument on the west bank of the Mississippi River, has stood for nearly forty years. It is a shining monument built to convey St. Louis’s role as the Gateway to the West. Only now has the reason for its construction as well as its true purpose been revealed. It seems that some of the same scientists responsible for the doomsday weapon research in the deserts of the Southwest U.S. during the forties, were also interested in controlling the weather. They hoped to use weather control as a means to aid in troop movement and logistics for the Allies, as well as use it as a tactical weapon against the enemy. This, they hoped, would bring about a quick end to the war in Europe.

Thus, the design for the arch was conceived.

[The above storm looks to split around the city of St. Louis. Red strong storms appear above and below the city but right over the city the weather splits and calms down to barely even a yellow color.]

As storms roll across the plains of North America they cut a path of destruction. The midwest has a notorious reputation for severe and dangerous weather. Powerful thunderstorms, tornadoes, and severe ice and snowstorms pummel the area year round. But, for some odd reason, as these storm systems approach the St. Louis metro area; they seem to “split” in half. One half of the storm system will move to the north, while the other half will move the opposite direction; creating an area in the middle without any severe weather. This area in the middle, you guessed it, the St. Louis metro area. These storms then “rejoin” again over Illinois and Indiana, well past St. Louis.

[In This picture the storm is completely destroyed over St. Louis but is reappearing on the east side of town in Illinois]

Does this happen every time, you may ask? The answer, put simply, is no.

Obviously the device cannot be used frequently during business hours as many tourists are inside the arch, but also the ‘Powers that be’ use this device at their own discretion so as not to draw too much attention.

The government has long since tried to cover up the details on this secret research project.

But the next time you watch the weather, pay close attention to the strange weather patterns and movement of storm systems in the St. Louis area.

Recent discoveries of underwater cities are changing the ideas we had about how civilization evolved on earth. They have found sophisticated tools and giant structures deep below the surface of the ocean in many places around the world. The recent findings show that humans had advanced to build giant cities and complex tools long before we ever thought possible. In fact they have found tools that have been carbon dated back to 32,000 years ago. Which could mean that these cities had been around for tens of thousands of years before that. To give you some idea of comparison our culture has advanced to this level of technology in less than 15,000 years. This means that a culture that existed long ago for more than 30,000 years before some catastrophic event caused their cities to sink into the ocean may have been far more technologically advanced than we are, in theory they could have been 3 times more advanced than we are today. For all we know when the Great Floods happened they simply left the planet.

The strangest of all underwater finds concerns the monuments of Yonaguni Jima discovered off the coast of Japan(pic on left is called “the turtle”)…which were hotly debated at one time but more and more evidence has been accumulating suggesting that the structures are actually man made(cut right into the bedrock like many other structures found).

Most alternative archeological researchers seem to believe that there was a technologically advanced civilization who built their structures in stone that existed at the end of the last ice age, when the sea levels were over a hundred feet lower than today. Since the biggest cities are always built on the coast, the place to look for ancient cities would be the levels at which the ocean used to be at before all the ice melted(approx 9500 BC).

However, even without taking such extreme dating ideas seriously we can see that there are definitely underwater ruins strewn all over the planet. Since the ocean levels are thought to have gone up and done with mini ice ages, it may be that we had civilization earlier than we thought%u2026just not as early as some like to believe.

The civilization of Ancient Egypt occurred in a past so remote that today it seems mystical. The pyramids and other temples, with their hieroglyphics depicting a flourishing civilization, have a mysterious, almost magical appeal. It seems inconceivable that people of an advanced society could have walked those ancient streets.

Now, it was announced in January, a civilization has been uncovered that would have appeared just as ancient to the people who built the pyramids as the pyramids seem to us.According to marine scientists in India, archaeological remains of this lost city have been discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India. And carbon dating says that they are 9,500 years old.This news completely contradicts the position of most Western historians and archaeologists, who (because it did not fit their theories) have always rejected, ignored, or suppressed evidence of an older view of mankind’s existence on planet Earth. Human civilization is now provably much more ancient than many have believed.

According to the BBC’s Tom Housden, reporting on the Cambay find:

The vast city — which is five miles long and two miles wide — is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology, who were conducting a survey of pollution.

Using sidescan sonar, which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the ocean, they identified huge geometrical structures at a depth of 120 feet.

Debris recovered from the site — including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture, and human bones and teeth — has been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old (BBC article).

Several reports confirm this estimate. Housden added, “The whole model of the origins of civilisation will have to be remade from scratch.”

Unheard-of Scope of Cambay RuinsThe BBC article tells us that the remains of this ancient city stand upon “enormous foundations.” Marine archaeologists discovered them with a technology known as “sub-bottom profiling.”Author and filmmaker Graham Hancock, an authority on archaeological investigations of ancient civilizations, reportedly said that the evidence was compelling. For example, he said that the oceanographers had found two large blocks that were larger than anything that’s ever been found. “Cities on this scale,” Hancock told BBC Online, “are not known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities begin to appear in Mesopotamia.

Theorists are postulating that the area where this city exists was submerged when the ice caps melted at the end of the last Ice Age.

“A month ago in mid-January [2002],” says Hancock on his website, “marine scientists in India announced they had sonar images of square and rectangular shapes about 130 feet down off the northwestern coast of India in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay). . . . [There are] sonar shapes with 90-degree angles. The Indian Minister of Science and Technology ordered that the site be dredged. What was found has surprised archaeologists around the world” (GrahamHancock.com/news.)

The Find Includes Human Remains

Linda Moulton Howe, who investigates occurrences of this type worldwide, interviewed Michael Cremo about this new discovery. Cremo is a researcher and author of the bookForbidden Archaeology. Cremo, Howe said, has visited India and attended local meetings about the Cambay site.
“Within the past few months,” Cremo told her, “the engineers began some dredging operations there and they pulled up human fossil bones, fossil wood, stone tools, pieces of pottery, and many other things that indicated that it indeed was a human habitation site that they had. And they were able to do more intensive sonar work there and were able to identify more structures. They appeared to have been laid out on the bank of a river that had been flowing from the Indian subcontinent out into that area.”

According to Howe:

Even if we don’t know what the cultural background of the people is, if it does happen to be a city that is 9500 years old, that is older than the Sumerian civilization by several thousand years. It is older than the Egyptian, older than the Chinese. So it would radically affect our whole picture of the development of urban civilization on this planet.

Now, if it further happens that additional research is able to identify the culture of the people who lived in that city that’s now underwater — if it turns out they are a Vedic people, which I think is quite probable given the location of this off the coast of India — I think that would radically change the whole picture of Indian history which has basically been written by Western archaeologists.

To read about the previously most ancient finds in India, at Harappan, and their relationship to Vedic tradition, please see Linda Moulton Howe’s article at her website EarthFiles.com.

The below picture is a satellite image of the Caribbean sea floor and it shows what could be an expensive acient civilization that would rival our biggest cities today.

Some students at the University of Kentucky with collaboration from the Christian Student Fellowship organized the largest water balloon fight to my knowledge in recorded history. The event used 175,141 water balloons and involved 8,957 people. They also put this cool little video together to show the setup and the fight in slow motion. I recommend watching the fight in 720 HD.

This reminds me of another crazy college film i saw a few years back from the University of Dayton where they organize this run to get good hotels for a school trip to Daytona Beach Florida.

This 21-foot, 2,375 pound megacroc destroyed four traps, one water buffalo, and possibly a fisherman before finally being captured in a specially-designed, reinforced, steel-wire trap. Trapped, not killed? And cue Jurassic Park theme music in 3… 2… 1…

Dang, Philippines, y’all got some big reptiles. This crocosaurus stands accused of killing one large water buffalo, and is the prime suspect in the case of a missing fisherman from back in July. Once it was finally trapped, it took approximately 100 men to drag it out of the water. It was then lifted by a crane into a truck and transferred to a temporary holding cell. He will eventually be the star of an eco-tourism park, which will hopefully bring some much-needed cash-flow to the impoverished area of Agusan, approximately 500 miles southeast of Manila. He is one of the largest crocodiles ever captured alive.

Oh, but here’s some good news. Wildlife official Ronnie Sumiller is leading the hunt for another croc which may be even bigger.

Backed by five village hunters he has trained, Sumiller has set 20 steel cable traps with an animal carcass as bait along the creek where the first crocodile was caught and in a nearby vast marshland.

Sumiller said he found no human remains when he induced the captured crocodile to vomit.

You induced a giant crocodile to vomit? How, by holding back its scales and sticking your finger down its throat? Or is that some sort of croco-emetic you’re pouring down that pipe into its mouth in the video? Regardless, the guy who has to pick through the croco-spew looking for human remains is underpaid no matter how much he makes. [AP via Business Insider]

These are myths about caffeine that have been proven at least in accurate. However any of you out there who drunk drive if you are offered coffee before you leave drink it. Not because it will make you sober, but it may keep you from falling asleep at the wheel, which is a little better.

Check her out of you are ever looking for more great information like this.

For many of us, a morning without coffee or tea is a like the proverbial day without sunshine. For me, much of it is about the ritual. OK, who am I kidding? It’s about the caffeine. Mmm, I love caffeine — that naturally occurring alkaloid found in the leaves, seeds, and fruits of more than 63 plant species worldwide. But at what risk do I indulge in my morning coffee and afternoon espresso?

Caffeine is most famous for its role as a stimulant and its ability to delay fatigue. I clearly get a boost of energy and clarity, as had been scientifically proven. But caffeine has also acquired a bad-boy reputation — an unfair one, perhaps? Extensive studies into its safety show that there are still many misconceptions about caffeine. Allow me to tackle some of the myths surrounding my beloved alkaloid.

Myth No. 1: Caffeine is addictive

Reality: Well, this depends on what you consider “addictive.” Caffeine is a stimulant to the central nervous system, and regular use of caffeine might cause mild physical dependence–but caffeine doesn’t affect your life the way addictive drugs do, and thus most experts don’t consider caffeine dependence an addiction, per se. When regular caffeine consumption is quickly halted, some of us experience symptoms that last from one to several days–this can be avoided if caffeine consumption is reduced slowly.

If you’ve tried to stop cold turkey, you may have experienced one of these symptoms:

Headache

Fatigue

Anxiety

Irritability

Depressed mood

Difficulty concentrating

Myth No. 2: Caffeine causes insomnia
Reality: It depends. The human body absorbs caffeine quickly, but it also flushes it quickly. Processed mainly through the liver, caffeine has a relatively short half-life. On average, it takes four to five hours to rid half of the consumed caffeine from your body — after another five hours 75 percent of it is eliminated. Unless you are very sensitive, a morning cup or two shouldn’t affect your sleep.

But if you have a quick latte at the 3:00 p.m. slump or an espresso after dinner, you may be counting sheep for a lot longer than you’re comfortable with. Your sleep shouldn’t be affected if you steer clear of caffeine for at least six hours before bedtime. Your sensitivity may vary, though, depending on your metabolism and the amount of caffeine you regularly consume.

Myth No. 3: Caffeine increases risk for osteoporosis, heart disease, and cancer
Reality: Moderate amounts of caffeine — about 300 milligrams, roughly three cups of coffee — apparently cause no harm in most healthy adults. Although some people are more sensitive to its effects, including older people and those with high blood pressure. Here are the facts by condition.

Osteoporosis: At high levels (more than 744 milligrams per day, around seven or eight cups of coffee), caffeine may increase calcium and magnesium loss in urine. But recent studies suggest it does not increase your risk for bone loss, especially if you get enough calcium. You can offset the calcium lost from drinking one cup of coffee by adding just two tablespoons of milk. However, research does show some links between caffeine and hip fracture risk in older adults. Older adults may be more sensitive to the effects of caffeine on calcium metabolism. If you’re an older woman, discuss with your doctor whether you should limit your daily caffeine intake to 300 milligrams or less.

Heart disease: According to the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, caffeine consumption does not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and does not raise cholesterol levels or cause irregular heartbeat. A slight, temporary rise in heart rate and blood pressure is common in those who are sensitive to caffeine — but the rise is minimal and comparative to normal activity like walking up stairs. That said, if you have high blood pressure, talk to your doctor about caffeine intake as some people may be more sensitive to its effects. Also, more research is needed to tell whether caffeine increases the risk for stroke in people with high blood pressure.

Cancer: According to The New York Times, scientists conducting an international review of 66 studies found coffee drinking had “little if any effect on the risk of developing pancreatic or kidney cancer. In fact, another review suggested that compared with people who do not drink coffee, those who do have half the risk of developing liver cancer.” And a study of 59,000 women in Sweden (the country with the highest coffee consumption per capita in the world) found no connection between caffeine consumption and breast cancer.

Myth No. 4: Pregnant women or those trying to get pregnant should avoid caffeine
Reality: I don’t know — it seemed natural for me to avoid caffeine both times I was pregnant, but a study conducted at State University of New York and another study published in the journal Epidemiology looked at the effects of caffeine-containing beverages on reproductive factors, and the results suggests that moderatecaffeine consumption is safe. However, one study found that women who consumed the caffeine equivalent of five or more cups of coffee per day were more than twice as likely to miscarry as those who consumed less caffeine or no caffeine at all, suggesting that “drinking very large amounts of coffee or other caffeine-containing beverages may increase a pregnant woman’s miscarriage risk,” said Mark Klebanoff, M.D., Director of NICHD’s Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research. “However, serum levels of paraxanthine that are usually seen among women consuming only about two or three cups of coffee a day do not appear to increase this risk.”

Questions remain about the effects of high doses of caffeine and it is wise for pregnant women to practice moderation (less than 200mg per day). The Food and Drug Administration’s advice? “Pregnant women should avoid caffeine-containing foods and drugs, if possible, or consume them only sparingly.”

Myth No. 5: Caffeine is bad for kids
Reality: Ack — The Journal of Pediatrics published a survey showing that in the U.S., 5- to 7-year-old children drank approximately 52 mg of caffeine daily and 8- to 12-year-old children drank 109 mg daily. In general, kids have the same ability to process caffeine that adults do. A study by A. Leviton published in Clinical Pediatrics suggests that caffeine-containing drinks and foods — consumed in moderation — have no detectable effects on hyperactivity or attention span of children. However, in sensitive children, higher doses of caffeine, may cause temporary effects such as excitability, irritability, reduced sleep, or anxiety.

But really, in my opinion, kids have their entire lives to be (non-) addicted to caffeine. Even if studies do suggest that up to 300mg of caffeine daily is safe for kids, the vehicles by which they are consuming it (sodas and energy drinks) are undeniably unhealthy.

Myth No. 6: Caffeine can knock out the alcohol
Reality: Such a cliche — a cup of coffee will erase the martini before, wine with, and the cognac after dinner. What research actually suggests is that people only think caffeine will help them sober up. Alcohol can be very clever that way. People who drink caffeine along with alcohol think they’re fine behind the wheel, when actually reaction time and judgment are still impaired. In fact, college kids who drink both alcohol and caffeine are actually more likely to have car accidents. According to Thomas Gould, PhD, of Temple University, ”The myth about coffee’s sobering powers is particularly important to debunk because the co-use of caffeine and alcohol could actually lead to poor decisions with disastrous outcomes.”

Myth No. 7: Caffeine has no health benefits
Reality: I can tell you right now, based on personal experience, that caffeine improves alertness, concentration, energy, clear-headedness, and feelings of sociability. Brain-fog be gone! Scientific research at John Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and Harvard support these subjective experiences — and have shown that caffeine may also improve memory and logical reasoning. A French study showed a slower decline in cognitive ability among women who consumed caffeine: “Caffeine is a psychostimulant which appears to reduce cognitive decline in women,” said study author Karen Ritchie, PhD, of INSERM, the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, in Montpellier, France.

Caffeine-containing beverages have been in the headlines lately for their high level of antioxidants, which appear to promote heart health and cancer prevention. Other recent reports suggest (although not yet conclusively) that caffeine may be useful in treating allergic reactions due to its ability to reduce the concentration of histamines, the substances that cause the body to respond to an allergy-causing substance. More research is need in this area before conclusions can be drawn however. Limited evidence suggests caffeine may also reduce the risk of the following: Parkinson’s disease, liver disease, colorectal cancer, and type 2 diabetes.

Moderation and caffeine levels

As with everything, moderation is the key. But what is a moderate intake of caffeine for an adult? About 300 mg a day.

I have a hard time believing this group of treasure hunters can’t all be happy with finding something worth $500 million. You would think they could all just take their share, which is about $100 million a piece, and be happy. However i can’t image what $500 million worth of emeralds look like.

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – It was an eye-popping investment pitch no one else could match — in return for $2 million, Manhattan accountant Neil Ash was offering investors a stake in the one of the biggest sunken treasures ever, an underwater site teeming with emeralds.

The hitch: When Ash took backers to a Citibank vault to inspect gems that had quietly been recovered from the sea, they were gone.

That set in motion a complicated and colorful legal scramble to lay claim to a trove of emeralds worth up to $500 million, according to court documents.

It’s a story marked by accusations of double-dealing, corporate mutiny and deceit. The cast includes an investor who once oversaw Citigroup’s hedge fund business, a Democratic Party insider who has hosted the Obama family at his Hawaii getaway and an unlikely amateur treasure hunter.

The main legal dispute has played out quietly in Delaware’s Chancery Court, where Jay Miscovich, a retired doctor who apparently found the emeralds, has battled against his investors who tried to seize control of the company that they say owns the treasure. A settlement was approved Friday, but if the treasure is as striking as court documents suggest, there are probably more legal fights to come.

“It’s just amazing to me, it’s nearly like a movie script,” said Paul Horan, Key West’s go-to attorney for treasure salvors, of the case. “You just scratch your head and ask what the hell is going on.”

The main players in the drama are bound to silence by confidentiality agreements. Most sensitive details have been redacted from court documents. It’s never even revealed where the sunken treasure is located, or thought to be located. The filings from each side that are public contradict eachother, and despite the settlement each side negates the other’s accusations.

“CACHE” DISCOVERED

To the degree a story can be pieced together, it goes something like this.

In early 2010, Miscovich, an investor in sunken treasure excavations, claimed to have located a site and recovered a “cache” of precious stones.

To pay for the pricey recovery work, Miscovich turned for assistance to his brother Scott, a Hawaiian physician. Scott connected Jay with Dean Barr, the former Citigroup hedge fund executive, who in turn, brought in Ash the accountant. In the summer of 2010, the pair agreed to pony up roughly $2 million, according to the partnership agreement, although the two sides differ on how much of that they actually invested.

Almost immediately, things soured. The investors suspected the Miscoviches were scheming to keep the most highly prized gems for themselves — a concern fueled by the empty safe deposit box episode.

Their worst fears seemed to be confirmed when Ash, the accountant, was contacted by Gerry Edwards, a diver working on the recovery efforts in Florida. Recounting the conversation to Reuters, Edwards said he told Ash that boxes of emeralds were being stashed out of the investors’ reach in Key West.

Soon after Edwards’ call to Ash, the investors sued. They wanted a ruling that Jay Miscovich had breached his contract with the investors and that they could seize control of the partnership.

The Miscovich side of the story, as related in court documents, is quite different. According to Jay Miscovich, the investors created events like the empty safe deposit box as a pretext to have the bank deny the brothers’ access to the vault. The “stash” that the diver Edwards discovered in Key West was nothing but worthless stones.

To Jay Miscovich, it was the investors who appeared to be angling to snatch the treasure.

The brothers, meanwhile, lined up heavy hitters to aid their case. Among their allies named in the court papers is Paul Sullivan, the executive director of the Democratic National Committee from 1977-1979 and President Bill Clinton’s deputy campaign manager in 1992. President Barack Obama has stayed at one of Sullivan’s Hawaiian properties, according to court papers.

In his heavily redacted court declaration on behalf of the Miscoviches, Sullivan states that “the resolution of such claims are extremely sensitive and confidential and often involve officials at the very highest level of government.” He seems the perfect man for the job, but it’s unclear what claims need resolving, or why it has to be done with top-level officials.

The Miscoviches have also been seeking to capitalize on the emeralds through media and marketing deals. In their court filings, the brothers mention book and movie rights. They have retained the public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard and gone so far as to schedule a meeting with the curator of the Smithsonian Institute’s mineral collection, Jeffrey Post. During the talk, they produced bags and bags of gems.

“You don’t get people walking in with sacks of gemstones very often,” said Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman. In his 17 years, he didn’t ever recall a meeting like it.

Kremer said Post found the stones “compelling” but did not want to say more until it was clear who owned them.

That might take a while.

SETTLEMENT SEALED

Friday’s settlement, much of which was sealed, resolved questions of corporate law stemming from the failed partnership. It appeared the investors gave up any claims to the business and that Miscovich will reinvest $500,000 in the operation. The fate of the gems is anybody’s guess.

The brothers have not filed a salvage claim in federal court, but when they do that could invite others to challenge it. The U.S. government, Florida or foreign nations might try to claim the emeralds, depending where it was found and if it was located near a shipwreck.

In the eyes of the law, the Miscoviches may be the least likely owners. “We may not know whose property it is, but we know it’s not yours,” was how Ole Varmer, a staff attorney for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, summed up the official view of treasure claims.

Just this week, Kenneth Rose, the owner of a treasure site near Woman Key, west of Key West, sought to intervene in the Miscovich case. Rose discovered an emerald he describes as the size of a chicken egg on a claim site he has held near Woman Key for decades.

He at first suspected the emerald might be part of the trove the Miscovich brothers are claiming, which would suggest that their gems actually belonged to Rose. But after hiring a lawyer to intervene, Rose concluded that someone had likely placed the egg-sized emerald on his claim in a bid to stir up trouble.

“Treasure hunters are only one step above drug dealers,” said Rose, who carefully described himself as an “opportunist.”

If nothing else, the story is a cautionary one for potential investors. If you are ever tempted to invest in sunken treasure, says Robert Marx, a treasure salvor in Florida, there’s just one thing to do.

“Take all your money you would invest, in banknotes, and go out on a boat with a bunch of naked chicks,” Marx said. “Take a whole bunch of booze and have a party. And when the wind starts blowing get the money and throw it in the air and let it blow into the sea.”

A stop motion animation that I created as my final project for my “Art and Alternative Media” class at Boston College. The movie is comprised of over 300 frames, and the only materials that I used were paper, colored pencils, glue, and cardboard. Using graph paper I recreated the pixel data 1:1 with the different colored pencils and then cut out each “sprite” after gluing it to cardboard for stability. The coloring and cutting out took a long time, but shooting the frames and putting together the video probably in total took about 36 hours. Please enjoy it, rate, and comment! All original spite data and music copyright Nintendo.